While some people are trying to lose weight, others may lose weight very quickly and unintentionally. Significant weight loss can conceal a more or less serious health problem. We explain!
Losing or gaining weight significantly in a short space of time carries health risks, whether or not it’s voluntary. Have you lost a lot of weight recently and don’t know why?
Even if it’s not always a serious problem, the loss of weight should be a cause for concern. Here are the reasons why!
Declining mental health
Weakened mental health may be responsible for your weight loss. Indeed, people suffering from depression often lose their appetite or simply their interest in food, causing them to stop eating.
This is also the case when you’re under a lot of stress and anxiety. While stress tends to make you gain weight, especially for people who are accustomed to taking refuge in food to calm their anxieties, for others, stress can knot up the stomach and make you lose your appetite altogether.
Hormonal disorders
Hormonal imbalance can also be the cause of weight loss. This is the case with thyroid disease, an endocrine disorder that often affects weight.
While hypothyroidism (when the thyroid gland secretes too few hormones) tends to cause weight gain, hyperthyroidism (when the thyroid gland produces too many hormones) accelerates metabolism overall, generally resulting in significant weight loss.
Social, economic and family factors
Weight loss can also be linked to age. Elderly people often find it harder to get around, go shopping or cook nutritious meals for themselves.
Loss of smell or dental problems can also affect appetite, not to mention emotional shocks (the loss of a spouse, for example).
This is all the more true when they are isolated and have no one to help or encourage them to eat.
Diseases
Significant, unexplained weight loss can also be the result of an illness.
Chronic diseases
These may be chronic illnesses, such as diabetes (particularly type 1), which is accompanied by excessive appetite, severe dehydration and rapid weight loss. Heart failure or chronic kidney disease can also explain this weight loss, especially when in an advanced stage.
Gastrointestinal disorders
Gastrointestinal disorders such as celiac disease, Crohn’s disease, pancreatitis, ulcerative colitis,hepatitis (B and C), gastro-oesophageal reflux disease and irritable bowel syndrome can cause weight loss.
Pathologies that affect the digestive system and are accompanied by appetite disturbance, diarrhea, vomiting, abdominal pain and malabsorption of nutrients.
Infectious diseases
Infectious diseases (respiratory, bacterial, viral, mycotic, parasitic) such as HIV-AIDS, syphilis, tuberculosis or the presence of a tapeworm in the intestines can also be the cause of sudden and impressive weight loss.
Neurodegenerative diseases
Neurodegenerative diseases, such as Parkinson’s, can also lead to weight loss when the sufferer encounters difficulties in eating (notably due to movement disorders).
Cancers
Unexplained weight loss can also be an early symptom of certain cancers (prostate, pancreas, stomach).
According to the Arc Foundation for Cancer Research, « between a third and a half of cancer patients begin their treatment in a state of undernutrition, i.e. with a lasting imbalance between energy intake from food and expenditure ».
Eating disorders
Some eating disorders, such as anorexia, are responsible for very rapid weight loss. It involves voluntary restriction of energy intake in order to lose weight.
In this case, the weight loss is intentional, but some patients suffer from these psychological disorders without being aware of it. This is the case for people suffering from dysmorphophobia, the obsession with a non-existent or slight physical complex. In such cases, weight loss may not be noticed at all.